People coming to Britain should learn English

A legal opinion from Matrix Chambers, commissioned by the human rights group Liberty, warns that Home Office plans to introduce an English language test for people coming to Britain to marry UK citizens could breach human rights and race relations laws. The tests will affect more than 25,000 spouses a year.

Well, Matrix is probably right. And it's not as if it is unknown for a British person to move abroad and not learn the language. Yet it's a strange human right, this right to remain isolated from the culture in which you live, unable to talk to a doctor, or your child's teacher, or the lady at the Job Centre. It is a right that harms the person who demands it, as well as the community they wish to join.

John Humphrys recently presented a show about education, during which he visited a primary school that did very well by its children, even though many arrived there unable to speak English. Good for it, and its impressive head teacher. But, still – I remember my first day at school and how frightening it was. I think most people do. How much more frightening would that experience be, if the language the teachers used was unintelligible? Presumably the vast majority of people who wish to come to Britain and marry intend to have children too. Is this a right worth defending really, the right to impede the development of your children?

The head teacher also said that even though many of the children who attended the school lived next to a large park, a lot of them had never been taken to it. That is surely the acme of isolation, not even leaving the house to visit the park with your children. Heartbreaking.

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